Abstract
This paper considers the question of eliciting and measuring one particular group of positive symptoms, those designated first-rank. The proposed solution to this problem is applicable to other positive symptoms that are disorders of experience. Schneider’s first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia (FRS) have attracted considerable interest over the past 20 years. The literature suggests that their diagnostic use is higher than their diagnostic value. This discrepancy may originate, in some studies, from a failure to appreciate that the phenomenological method must be used to identify FRS, and, when it has been employed, its use needs to be precisely defined. The methodological difficulties that attend the clinical use of the phenomenological method and the “measurement” of the symptoms so elicited will be described, as will a solution which is based upon the concept of subjective probability.
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Mellor, C.S. (1991). Methodological Problems in Identifying and Measuring First-Rank Symptoms of Schizophrenia. In: Marneros, A., Andreasen, N.C., Tsuang, M.T. (eds) Negative Versus Positive Schizophrenia. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76841-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76841-5_5
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